I could hold it in a breath,
bury it inside my chest,
watch the cilia react,
a current sent with each contact;
alas, I cannot keep it in
considering the broken skin;
with crimson ink, this razorblade’s
a fountain pen, I scrawl away:

“Hear me now, in sight of God,
first all is still, then comes the flood.”
The little blackbird hushed her song—
she could sense something was wrong—
pitchforked lightning bent the trees
and fireworks consumed the leaves
where my better angels hanged—
this, the Province of the ******.

If you were kept inside my chest,
you’d have slipped out with the rest,
while the vultures had their fill
picking piece by piece until
I’m left bone-bleached in the sun—
all the others turned to run;
but you were steadfast through it all,
from the spire to the fall.

The willow whispers from outside
where my history resides,
ghosts of angels hide beneath
the wilted branches of that tree—
I still catch glimpses of the scythe
from the corner of my eye,
but morning’s come, I cannot sleep here
in the shadow of the Reaper.

Gracious god, I Am
handcuffed to the bed
(white wine and
cigarettes)—
I will not forgive regrets.

This hornet’s nest, a home—
I choke on church bells,
starved of faith—
an empty sternum, bellyache.

Among the living dead,
I speak the language:
“Let me in!”
But I cannot betray my sin.

Midnight eyes, a sad seduction
to parlor jazz, ads burn through windows
rolled up tight on Lincoln Drive,
the skyline drips and sighs with pleasure.
You and I could sleep all night
on our Uber ride to the towers
(we never mind the drunken fight,
we never mind the complications).

Lightning loves the tallest trees, and
you and I? A redwood forest.
But what is love without the static?
(A dead-eyed kiss, a glance at strangers).
Pale, the art that imitates us.
Lungs collapse with rampant laughter.
(We pay no heed to warning signs,
we pay no mind to hidden danger).

Hilda died before her time—
just before
her honeymoon—
she’d spent it all,
every dime
she’d made in tips
on afternoons.

she wore her mother’s wedding dress—
dated lace,
a size too small—
but beautiful
nonetheless,
and full of grace,
she read her vows.

she hid her bruises with a sleeve—
finger marks
(his grip was strong)—
she promised him
she’d never leave;
(the little things
we keep in songs).  

he killed her with a forty-five—
had it hid
below the bed—
so what’s it mean
to be alive?
the only ones who know
are dead.

All’s quiet and
still,
sky’s pregnant with
snow;

every flake, a lake
of ice—
every footstep, a false
echo;

the moon
beamed
upon the frozen
few,

the streetlamp
schemed,
and begged me
to kiss you.

Lying low on the beach of the lake,
small as a snake,
a naked leech.

Its body deflates as I bathe—
as I dive in the wave—
it bakes in the sand.

I rise to a sea of them, boiled,
spoiled black in the sun—
bloodless beasts.

But I’ve a few bottles of beers
to elicit some cheers
on my day at the beach.

Last fed is the last out of bed.
Just a few words to live by.
I guess what I mean is
I meant what I said,
I never looked back as I tore out of town.

Back home, folks were slower than most,
lazy days, nowhere to go.
Not much disrupting,
except occasional snow,
and me, I kept right in my lane.

Now those days are gone,
and for real,
I don’t miss it.
Never been ****** like I was that one Christmas;
now holidays hurt, but I won’t
cross those bridges.

Symbols in smoke are sketched in the sky,
I mistook them for clouds,
guess the shapes caught my eye.
My sister once scribbled a scene in her notebook,
looked just like Milwaukee, but felt just like home.

Everyone hurts,
we’re all just the same;
but I’ll make a name, when I dust off the dirt.
Can’t quit for trying, and won’t keep pretending.
All we can do is
keep on enduring.

It’s a little ways to Heaven
but the farthest place to travel—
out my window
through the alley
where you found me, collar broken;

there are mirrors in the attic
that you placed there to remind me
that a ghost can
haunt a dwelling
with a body and a heartbeat

well then maybe the horizon
stretches further than my bedroom,
past the street signs
and the shoreline
of the ocean, past the islands

where I thought I saw Orion,
on a hunt, perhaps, for something
irreplaceable
and priceless
he could take back to Poseidon

in the end he came up empty,
(there’s a lesson in there, somewhere)
which is why I
haunt the attic—
I never cared much for the sea.

The soil and sand remember
how the cities wept,
the towers bowing and breaking,
collapsing with the weight
of the blame they kept within;

the coastal causeway meanders
down a bone-dry path
to nowhere,
passing nothing in particular
but some stilted shacks
in the former fens;

and my own familiar forest,
where I trapped a fox
and made a friend,
was caught off guard by
a flash of light, and some
freakish violent wind;

and now I sit on a stump,
glowing green with
weaponized dust,
to scan this new Sahara
for some sign of life—
some vindication, or some
hope—

but alas,
it’s now past midnight,
and we are all just
silhouettes.

Packed in the back seat of
your cramped Chevy Lumina,
and parked on the frontage road
behind the conifers
in your backyard—

the moon is low, a jaundice yellow,
the car is stalled, the heater grumbled;
you pull me in to warm me up,
my glasses fog,
you steal my smile—

[Your father, for his Sunday sermon,
packed the house—Leviticus:
“’Their blood shall be upon them,’ and
all God’s children said?”
“Amen.”]

Our breath condensed, whisper-white,
traced our initials on the window—
in after-laughing afterglow,
you swallow, nervous,
before you kiss me.

We don’t let go, till cabin lights
illuminate your father’s form—
the verse, full force, the wrath of God,
a hurricane—
a Horrible.

I never saw you afterward,
poor pastor’s son, where have you gone?
Like Pyramus, at the sight of blood
on Thisbe’s veil—
we don’t prevail.

A gap-toothed
grin—
maple syrup
skin,

and eyes
alight,
all blue and
white;

beyond the
grasp
of
prejudice,

your laugh is
truth—
I’ll follow
you.

Two boys on
the bridge,

each, the other,
his;

they gaze across
the bay—

they could be there
one day.

Fly home, to the bittersweet,
to the mill pond with the fuzzy water—
that thick green ****—or "scuzz" as you called it—
where the bullheads hid—
a can of corn could catch them;

I saw ghosts across in the cemetery—
visiting graves with their cold white orchids
and speaking of life like it passed already
on the old freight train that sometimes
crossed those bridges;

somewhere beyond, an old Native died—
at the end of his trail, not a song left to sing,
though now of course, he’s immortal, in bronze,
in his saddest pose,
on his darkest day;

in the center of town are the great prison walls,
a limestone reminder of who we are not,
and who, if we hated our gods, could become
in the blink of an eye—
in the absence of love;

and home is the smallest house on the street
near where our mothers made parts for the War,
and if I get the time, I ought to visit that place,
to fish in the pond—
and catch up with old ghosts.

Those who believe that
words cannot ****
have never read
the Second
Amendment,
or witnessed the blood it has spilled.

Another glass
(bodega red)—
Christmas lights,
all buzz-eyed bokeh—

I want you close,
my nervous tic,
my lunar love,
Cassiopeia—

this holiday I
said too much,
I made a fool of
both of us—

but I don’t drink
to disappear—
I drink to kiss
my fearless lover.

Now I lay me down, in bedlam—
nighttime stories never end well—
and I can’t think to breathe,
the sweat is soaking through the sheets.

Streetlamp lights send shadows skittering
wild and wicked through the blinds; they
cast themselves like hieroglyphics
upon my walls: (is this a sign?)

But no, it’s just a fever dream,
I’ve seen these lights a hundred times, and
I’m always contemplating life:
(a radar blip; a satellite!)

On nights like these,
when, wide awake, I
hysterically search for some escape—
(the heat in here is overwhelming!)
–and as I feel my center slipping,
I look to you; your picture framed.

Grounded in an iris, carved—
or crystallized—out of ice,
(my favorite way to meet destruction
is to be frozen when it starts).

But Frost was right, in his desire—
(you know, the world will end in fire)—
and so I will not sleep for days,
as hidden flames rise ever higher.

Live off of last night’s
sugar rush street lights

ignore this hysteric
canary—the enemy

and tune in the tin-foiled
rabbit-eared radio—

we’ll dance to the broadcast
of our last night
on this Earth.

Mama gave me all of my
stubborn strength
and jealousies,
my hurry-up,
my alibies—
she’d lift her gospel
hands with me.

Jesus never came in clear,
the scripture scraped
into her palms,
those panicked prayers
he couldn’t hear,
but her persistence
carried on.

She taught me what the value is
of never hedging
any bets—
when life is short,
you go all in—

my dad though, he knew
when to quit.

Sipping communion wine—
oh why, poor devil, did you ever dare drink—
everything will be fine,
I think.

Source of the albatross:
slipshod Leviticus, cavalier reject—
my mom dog-eared the verse,
I checked.

I kiss him on the mouth,
and enter the hush of an unwelcoming house—
I guess the silence stings,
a bit.

Taut, like a candle wick
pre-flame,
before the pillar buckled
and You forgot our names;

there were city lights here, once,
or so I heard it said—
I figure lights just beckon moths,
as moons do waves,

or faults do quakes (the skyline
falls)
our cells connecting,  
disconnecting,
blinking out like stars;

and turning back, we see the city
through smoke;
“Goodbye, Gomorrah,”
we hum,
reposed in salt.

we heard
there’s a rumor of war,
and there’s nowhere to
run;

we killed
those Connecticut kids
to make room for
our guns;

we shrugged
when we noticed the graves
overflow with our
young;

we can
get used to anything—
like a school slick with
blood—

we will
destruct according to
the Devil’s bargain we’ve
struck.

The stars recede into the satin
of the midnight sky, phantasm
fireflies will flicker
to replace the lights that left us;

the settled logic of a thought
that lingers somewhere in between
the ephemera of dreams,
and the transience of love:

if stars are dust, and I am, too,
then I am light, and so are you,
or else we’re fuel to feed the stars
when we collapse back into dust—

everything is temporary—
the chrysanthemum and cardinal,
the earth will saturate with spirits—
and it won’t hurt but for a second;

right before we’re long forgotten,
as the tidal wave surrounds us,
we will speak with cold precision,
Hemingway's brevity and feeling:

“Nothing ever had a meaning,
but for what we chose to give it.”
And all this time, I had been thinking
that I’d find it, if I’d been looking.

Ultraviolet in piercing places,
lips and lungs and tongues and
tummies
under light gray tide-taut moonlight,
under neon’d open windows;

sudden deep-breaths, underwater—
where I can’t swim, six fathoms deep,
there, eight-armed squid and bottom-feeders
lay their eggs and send out signals—

I sink—lead-head—to the sea floor,
towards the lava, I hit heat vents,
and I feel everything inside you,
I hear gasping—I feel hidden—

I know everything about you,
each college story, soul permission—
a geyser bubbles out from inside—
an ocean stitched from skin and marrow—

one body could not hold it in,
one of us against a sea-wall?
One boy alone would not go swimming—
but both of us could drown together.

And back in bed, above the covers
inside a cloud of skin-sweet hormones,
pink and red, we now tread water—
I touch your chest, I vow to sink.

and just how far have you gone for the sake of your "camaraderie," my friend?

their half-glow hearts and prejudiced minds could have swallowed you whole,

or abandoned you, wit be-******, and genius be-******, you
might have died a pauper—

I hear they’d **** a man much more guarded than you, they might string him up,

tie his broken body to a fencepost, leave him ******,

satisfy a tyranny under the watchful eye of a loving God,

trade a boy in Laramie for a jet-black brutal odium,

**** a kid and wonder what his mother did to steer him wrong—

but still you wrote of calamus and of holding hands and handsome lovers,

still you gave us songs to sing back to our lovers, gentle songs,

despite the shame and censorship they cursed you with, despite

the threat that everything could be undone, despite the scripture,

well I must say, dear Good Gray Poet, before I fold my hand,

thank you, Walt, for giving us what you never had.

There was a stretch of land down 49
that cut the Hori-
con in half,

I drove that road with windows rolled
down, breathing in the
earthen scents;

(and while I’d never
spotted her,
I was told the Great Blue Heron lived there)

the crickets
tuned their instruments
and played out a moonlit sonata,

while a symphony of scarlet lights
blinked in sync
like fireflies

that bathed the Marsh in
fleeting crimson, a pulsating
vermillion.

The windmills weren’t there before,
they all went up
some years ago,

and though the terraform’s not
terrible
(I suppose it’s better for the Earth)

the flashing scared
the birds away, and
I miss the calm of Yesterday.

If Pluto’s a planet,
or some sort of moon,
or even a comet; it doesn’t much matter—
not for my purpose—
I feel I should live there.
Just pack up my suitcase,
and move to that snowball that’s
orbiting something,
or just flying solo.

Down here on Earth,
the sun is too warm, and
the light is imposing;
whatever’s concealed is
revealed in the morning,
and I’m left to relive my
memories over.

But Pluto is darker
for most of the day;
the nights will last longer
as life hibernates;
and I can be hidden beneath miles of snow—

Where I’ll be
           forgotten,
                    as I drift
                          
                                ­ alone.

Put on your best pair of jeans
so you can come out with me—
in the deepest layer of love,
to the last outdoor theater back home—
the weather is perfect, tonight
so it’ll be worth it, all right,
and everything else fades below
the haze of this halcyon glow.

You fell—
ruby red, and
wild-smiled—
into the Black Lake

(oh well—
nothing more than
a cycle, I know—
I’m used to the ache).

Up here, up above
on granite
beaches,
a body was found—

(it was hours below
the oil-slick
surface
before you breathed deep
and drowned).

Morphine to drift free,
and the dim light of purpose
could cut through the darkness
while I wait to resurface;

I see a swan on the water,
she bathes in the Loch Ness,
a summoned companion,
or someone to grow old with.

The feeling of fire
corrupts me completely—
to wit, I retire
from meaningless dreaming

and send out a message
as coded, heavy breathing
to signal the nurses
to let flow the morphine.

Who am I to set this scene—
an old psalm slipping from my throat
to pass along,
to float like leaves
from a stolid, ancient oak—?

Bathe, Bethesda, in the font
of our foremost human need—
to be heard, and
to be seen,
we're jet-black beacons in the dark.

Pose a query, on the tongue—
does the soul continue on,
to the source, or
to the sun,
and will we notice when it’s gone?

This chrysalis has come undone—
I am a moth, I endeavor
to seek the light,
to multiply,
and above all else,
to hope for more.

I want to be
buried deep
in snow;

this is a blessing,
a simple message,
of hope.

White winter devils,
frost-bitten petals,
a note;

felt calm and careful,
stood on the bar stool,
the rope

fell from the rafters,
last call for laughter,
I choke.